"Basically to summarize, for political activism to enact change, Mouffe believes it is better to intervene and transform the existing codes rather than ‘start from scratch.’...In the systemic interventions and transformations she proposes – Mouffe seems to have cleared a space for architect’s to accept their role in politics, and empowered them to participate in counter-hegemonic activity".

Over at Marketplace, Stacey Vanek Smith reported "Basically, the housing market has been sideways for the past six months and that’s very disappointing...The housing market made big gains last year, but so far 2014 isn’t looking so hot".

School/BlogsNicole Doan spent the past quarter "(in) George Proctor's winter topic studio focused on modular housing". In her post titled The glorified tent, she describes how she and her partner in crime, Corey Loren Pope eventually narrowed their site location to Yosemite National Park.

Evan Chakroff shared some thoughts on the Okayama Orient Museum, which he visited "last December in Japan, leading a group of students and professors (from Ohio State University)". Mr. Chakroff writes "this is a little gem of a museum, an architecturally ambitious design…(designed by) architect, Shinichi Okada (& Assoc), who remains somewhat overlooked by canonical histories of Japanese modernism".

Discussionswurdan freo started a thread to discuss whether "egress from a third floor in a single family home per the IRC requires two separate stairs...Or am I reading the code entirely wrong?" gruen answered "Where are you located? Local code is critical".

DMS-USA also pointed out "The issue you're addressing is concerning life safety, which is the building department'sbailiwick. For that definition, our 'basement' needs to conform to the definition tendered in IRC R202". snooker-doodle-dandy advised "Keep in mind the State and local codes do have amendments to the IRC. Be sure your using the proper issue of the IRC as accepted by your State of Local".

"Spike may have not delivered the most eloquent speech about the topic, but man people are really racist behind the safety of their computers".

jla-x further encouraged Archinectors to "go back and watch his film Do The Right Thing...it is one of the most important mainstream films on the social connection to urbanism and architecture".

Peter Normad argued "Gentrification is Social engineering through zoning, sidewalk regulations, and Class displacement". In a similar vein OBO Olaf Design Ninja chimed in "I would suggest building on Beta's comment - Hipster gentrification is a polite method of ‘cleaning up’ the neighborhood"